


Smoke-filled room

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Knights of Walpurgis, M/M, Politician Tom Riddle, Politics, Possessive Tom Riddle, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Quidditch Player Harry Potter, Smoke-filled Room, mild exhibitionism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:10:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22247818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Whilst sitting through one of Tom's political rendezvous, Harry finds a way to entertain himself, and Tom might just regret inviting him to stay in the first place.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 14
Kudos: 542





	1. Chapter 1

“Care to stop taking up the _entire_ sofa?”

Harry looked up from the latest edition of Seeker Weekly, Tom was standing across the room, to be more specific he was leaning against the door frame and tapping his fingers on the wood; evidently, he’d been there quite a while. 

“What?” Harry said. 

“I asked you to move; they’ll be here soon,” Tom said, not moving for his spot, positioned equally between Harry and the front door.

Without really meaning to Harry rolled his eyes, but drew himself up, from lying to sitting, anyway, until he was scrunched up in the left-hand corner of the sofa. Usually, he didn’t have to put up with this, as _usually_ Tom’s clandestine political arrangements coincided with his quidditch practise, in fact, Harry would say that they had gone out of their way to ensure it was like that. After all, even if he didn’t explicitly dislike Tom’s politics, it certainly bored him to death to listen to them, and as for Tom, Harry was pretty sure that, despite taking him to his weekly games for over a year now, Tom still didn’t quite get what the point of quidditch actually was.

Rather, their interest for each other’s careers, in those respects, were purely superficial. Hence, Tom came to every quidditch game Harry had ever played, but he never watched him train, and Harry paid attention to every public address that Tom made; all the announcements and legislative declarations and such like, but he was never around when Tom formulated his politics.

Until today that was. 

Because today, it was raining in such a way that could only be described as catastrophic. Ever since dawn, the rain had been lashing itself against the windows, leaving a constant smear of tears all over the glass and deepening puddles along the foundations. Then there was the noise; the pounding sound had been a continuous drumming no matter how deep into the bowels of their house he went, or how far from a window he managed to get, it was always drumming with noise. 

Needless to say, even the most seasoned quidditch player would have had their apprehensions about training, but Harry had still been up for it. At least, until the thunder had started around midday and the lightning followed, and, if it were at all possible, the water slashed down even harder than before. 

By that point, Tom had banned him from going out regardless of whether practise was on or not. He was strangely protective about things like that. A fastidious interest in Harry’s wellbeing that was so intense, it was almost unnerving; or maybe it was just unnerving because Harry had never had anyone who cared that much about him before. Either way, he had still seriously considered sneaking out to go anyhow, but, in the end, they’d cancelled practise and his plans were rendered null and void.

Hence, he was stuck here, in a house about to be filled with former Slytherins who all looked at Tom like he was a brightly coloured piece of candy that they wanted to suck right down to the centre. All the while either looking at Harry himself with a snobbish disdain or with a poorly disguised wanting, usually the reaction depended on who it was and how much they wanted to irritate Tom. 

Thinking of Tom, Harry looked up again to see him still leaning against the doorframe, watching each movement in that same snake-like way that he always did when he was scheming.

“I don’t have to stay if you don’t want me, you know?”

Tom’s face softened minutely. When Harry had first met him, he’d been sure that Tom didn’t know what an emotion was, he certainly acted like he didn’t. But, over the years, he’d learnt that Tom knew exactly what emotions were, he just felt them differently; far less dramatically, and always with this same streak of rationality running through like woodgrains. So he, and perhaps he alone, saw the subtleties in Tom’s reactions; that slight quirk of his mouth when he was amused, or the flicker of his eyes when he was irritated, and especially that half-smile as sweet as saccharine that only Harry got to see. “I want you to here,” Tom said softly, “you know that.”

He looked like he was going to say more, but he was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. The faint ringing sound they’d been meaning to replace because neither of them ever heard it unless they were listening for it. Though still, Tom didn’t move to do anything immediately; instead, he stayed, at least another thirty seconds watching him until Harry started to pull at the neckline of his shirt and attempted to smooth his hair down, in case that was what Tom was looking at.

The doorbell rang again. 

And again. 

“Shouldn’t you get that?” Harry said eventually, still patting at his hair awkwardly.

“No. They can learn to wait,” Tom said, still leaning against the doorframe, his eyes obviously wandering _all_ over him, as he ran his tongue over his bottom lip. It took him too long, and Harry sat, not uncomfortable under the gaze but certainly self-consciously.  
“Anyway,” Tom continued, “I’m busy right this second… admiring you.”

Harry dipped his head and stared at his magazine for a minute; he knew he was flushing, that same unflattering shade of red, rather akin to a strawberry, that he always went when Tom had the audacity to say something nice with no immediately obvious ulterior motive.

But the moment was interrupted by a violent knocking on the door. Followed by muffled shouting, almost certainly by Lestrange and almost certainly using a wide variety of _colourful_ language. Tom rolled his eyes and left the room. A few seconds later, he heard the sounds of the door opening and brief, lowered, conversation, that gradually became anything but lowered. 

“Well, I wouldn’t have gotten so fucking soaked if _you_ had just opened the fucking door,” Lestrange was saying, or rather proclaiming to any who would listen, and it was definitely Lestrange talking, no one else could get away with such a clipped tone to their consonants, or indeed such a chastising tone; not to Tom. 

Lestrange, looking more than a little drenched, was still whining when he walked into the room, but he stopped as soon as he saw Harry. In fact, he openly sighed and rolled his head back with all the drama in the world.  
“Oh, _that’s_ why you couldn’t come to the fucking door, isn’t it?” 

Tom glared at him, so did Harry, Lestrange just smirked. 

Taking a breath that quite possibly could have been interpreted as a sigh, Harry watched as the rest of them filed in, one behind the other like a trail of ants, and chatting away like children on their lunch break. They were all people whose faces Harry knew in passing, some from newspapers, some from photographs, and some from the glitzy Ministry social events that Tom periodically dragged him to. Most of them were tolerable without being especially pleasant to be around; the highlight was probably Rosier, who always managed to treat him as more than just another one of Tom’s appendages, the lowlight was easily Lestrange, who always did the opposite. 

Speaking of Lestrange, he’d flung himself into the seat at the other end of the sofa because he was never one to respect personal space, and also because he knew it would irritate Tom. Somehow Lestrange always knew exactly what would grate Tom’s nerves, he wasn’t one to avoid exploiting obvious weaknesses, that was why he was a good lawyer and a bad friend. 

The others all spread out across the room, Malfoy in the comfortable chair to Harry’s right, Avery in the less comfortable one over on the left; Mulciber and Rosier on the sofa just across from Harry. Each of them carved out their own small segment of personal space that they were defending against all intrusions, rather like how territory might be divided up between a jaguar and its prey; they _all_ knew who the jaguar in that situation was. 

Casually, Harry cast his eyes over all of them, some like Malfoy and Rosier gave him a tolerant smile in return, the others intentionally ignored his presence, as though he were just another fancy cushion pushed into the corner. 

Fine by him. 

He was quite prepared to ignore all of them as well; he _was_ quite the mature adult when he wanted to be. So, he opened up his magazine; page twenty-four had a nice lengthy discussion on an interesting new tactical formation that was currently sweeping through the European teams and might just be worth considering here. He tried to just focus on the words and the sound of the rain and the soft, almost sibilant words, Tom was speaking in that ‘politician voice’ that Harry had always thought was a little too...

Provocative, for public office. 

Harry turned the page again, too quickly because he hadn’t read it yet, but it was a good, if only momentary, distraction from the path his brain was currently wandering down. The was as thick and dense as a jungle with less than virtuous ideas. 

He glanced up at Tom again, who was already monologuing as he paced slowly around the room, hands moving hypnotically as he demonstrated a point, and his voice painting the political scene so carefully. Harry licked his lips, almost chewing on the lower one, before going back to his magazine.

It would be a shame to waste the occasion of them both being home at the same time.

Without thinking, Harry looked up again, this time to see Tom looking back. For a second, he faltered, the words not quite leaving his mouth at exactly the right moment, before recovering so smoothly that you’d barely have noticed the fault unless you were looking for it. Harry shifted slightly, uncrossing his legs and placing one firmly on the floor, whilst the other stayed bent for him to lean the magazine on.

It would _definitely_ be a shame. 

But it might be easily remedied, with the right course of action that was. Harry swallowed, a faint, and distinctly dishonourable, strategy starting to form right in the centre of his brain. Maybe, quidditch being cancelled wouldn’t be so bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got a little long, and I'm pretty sure there's a tonal shift, not to mention whatever happened to the power dynamics and the politics, so all round apologies for all that; I hope it's vaguely alright.

Harry peered over the top of his magazine, he looked like he was reading, or at the very least, examining one of the pictures with intense scrutiny. He wasn’t. Rather, he was watching Tom, who was still wandering, or really it was prowling around the room; judging everyone and making them distinctly uncomfortable, whilst discussing some boring part of Parliamentary procedure that, until now, Harry had managed to avoid ever hearing about. 

Too bad it couldn’t stay that way.

But instead of listening properly, Harry was distracting himself with Tom’s face; he had a nice one, a _really_ nice one, and there were some days where Harry could hardly believe that it was all his. Right now though, Tom was looking particularly… delicious. Perhaps it was the way the light fell across his face, pooling dark shadows around every contour and highlighting every ridge. Or maybe, it was that colours that smoothed all over his skin; that vivacious crimson that curled itself through his eyes and down along the curve of his mouth so that he was wearing one of those red velvet smiles that tasted as good as it looked. Either way, Harry licked his lips, biting down on the lower, not too hard, but certainly hard enough that it caught the corner of Tom’s eye. 

He was good at spotting details like that. Just the menial things that other people skimmed over. It was one of the more professional reasons why Harry liked Tom to attend his weekly matches; he could see the slight mistakes in placement or form better than anyone. Not to mention, Tom was also _awfully_ willing to tell him all about his form afterwards, albeit in positions that his coach would probably rather not hear about.

Ever so slightly, Harry tilted his head back to expose his throat just that little bit more. It was a significant enough gesture that Tom would definitely see, whilst still being subtle enough that no one else was going to notice, and even if they did, they wouldn’t _get_ it. 

Oh, but Tom would. 

Tom would understand that this was the beginning of a game, just a bit of light entertainment to whet his appetite before the main course, as it were. Harry would go first, moving the pieces and forming his strategy, rather like playing the opening move in a game of chess, and then he would sit back and wait to see how long Tom would hold his ground.

How long he was willing to deny himself for the sake of his friends.

When Harry thought of it like that, this was rather a scientific experiment, and that was how he was going to frame the justification to Tom later. That it was all an elaborate experiment to see what he could do before he managed to get under his skin, and make him itch, and make him squirm until he could no longer bother to resist. 

Just a test of wills. 

But for now, Tom wasn’t reacting as he should. If anything, he was outright ignoring him, which wasn’t how this was supposed to go. So, Harry raised his hand up in a stretching motion, rubbing it along the back of his neck before hooking it into his hair. This time, Tom’s eyes faltered in their wanderings, and they didn’t just pass over Harry as they had been doing, rather, they rested, heavily on the gentle movements of Harry’s fingers, following it like a baby might a rattle.

The back of Harry’s neck had always been a locality over which Tom had monopolistic jurisdiction, not that Harry was complaining; he rather liked having Tom’s fingers sliding into his hair and stroking patterns into his scalp, and he wanted to feel them right now.

His own hand just wasn’t the same. 

Tom continued to watch, licking his lips slowly and pressing his hand against the back of Malfoy’s chair, his fingers curling around the material, hooking into it very much like they would hook into Harry’s hair as they pulled him closer and made good use of his mouth. 

But good moments couldn’t last forever, and this one barely lasted thirty seconds.

“Tom, for the third fucking time,” said Lestrange, his foot tapping on the floor, “I am talking to you.” Harry dropped his hand and turned another page of the magazine, trying to ignore how Lestrange’s tone veered dangerously close to inhospitable territory. The sort of tone you really didn’t want someone with poor impulse control and history of violence using. 

“And you could have the decency to fucking listen to me.”

Slowly, Tom peeled his eyes away from Harry and turned his gaze over to Lestrange; he glared, “and I heard you,” he snapped, though Harry very much suspected he hadn’t, _in the slightest_ , heard _anything_ that Lestrange had been talking about for the last five minutes. Not when he’d been far too distracted with watching Harry’s hands. 

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I’m listening now,” said Tom, sharper enough that you could use his tone as salad dressing, “so make it worth my while.” 

After a moment’s more of staring, Lestrange backed down, dropping his eyes to the floor in some sign of deferral to Tom’s authority, and then he started talking again, though the slight acidity stayed in his tone. Tom did not look back over Harry. Instead, he continued to wander, aimlessly now, whilst nodding slowly to the things that Lestrange was saying, but not necessarily taking any of them to heart. Over the top of his page, Harry could see the distance, glazed, expression settle on Tom’s features; it was the same one that he wore when Harry had been talking about quidditch for more twenty minutes and Tom physically couldn’t take it anymore.

That blankness that said he’d given up listening and had instead retreated into his private own thoughts.

And, by the way Tom kept glancing over, just short, sharp looks, followed by his tongue outlining his mouth again, Harry could hazard a pretty good guess what those thoughts currently were. 

At the sight of it, Harry ducked his head and smiled to himself, before he folded shut the magazine and placed it on the seat beside him. The others continued to not pay the slightest bit of attention to him, not even when he started to stretch, raising his arms above his head and arching his back, and making his shirt ride up to reveal a good couple of inches of skin.

But Tom saw. 

Tom _definitely_ saw. 

It was obvious in the way he looked elsewhere too quickly, before making his way over to the sideboard across the room, where there was a jug of water standing. The thing was only there because Tom didn’t drink, at least, not in front of his friends, unless social conventions absolutely demanded it; it was simply another one of his strange and utterly uncompromising peculiarities. Harry had a list of them somewhere. 

Hence, whilst everyone else poured and sipped at a fashionable glass of red wine from the coffee table, Tom instead took his time in pouring himself a glass of water and looking unfairly attractive while he did it. 

Harry watched him from the back, admiring the lines of his legs, and the curve of his spine, and the stretch of his neck as he turned to glance at Lestrange. He swallowed and noted to himself that that particular shirt Tom was wearing was so criminally good looking on him, tight in all the right places; fitted around the waist and pulled just about decently over the shoulders. It was one of Harry’s favourite shirts, and it certainly felt like a personal reward that Tom was wearing it, after all, he never wore it to any of his professional events. Though that was probably for the best, people would likely be too distracted by how good he looked to even pay attention to what he was talking about.

“So, is that something we can pursue?” Tom asked softly, interrupting Harry’s train of thought and revealing that apparently, Harry had missed half the conversation, but he couldn’t help it; not when Tom had the audacity to look like _that_. Not that it mattered what had been said anyway because _nothing_ was being said now. In fact, the noise of splashing water had become the most prominent sound in the room.

It seemed no one wanted to talk. 

“Mulciber?” said Tom, as though he had a genuine choice whether or not to answer, “your esteemed legal perspective is always appreciated.” He turned around as he said it, one hand resting against the sideboard and the other holding his glass. 

“Umm… well, ethically speaking…?”

Harry dragged his eyes away from Tom at the mentioning of ethics, after all, Tom didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to ethical decisions; he cared significantly more for the ends rather than the means by which they were achieved, which was _mostly_ fine until it wasn’t. Until he was doing things that cut very close to the line of legality, no matter what Lestrange insisted. 

Fortunately, they didn’t have time to dwell on the mentioning of ethics because Mulciber was fumbling with his words, and Tom was getting irritated with him. To anyone who knew him well, the rising level of impatience was obvious, for the lines of his back had become straighter and the grip on his glass was slightly too tight to be entirely natural. Tom did not appreciate incompetence at the best of times.

“Well?” he said, a little pricklier than before, as though each letter were tipped with a poisoned point. It was the spike of a particular thread of _persuasion_ that Tom wasn’t above using to force words out of people’s mouths, similar, but with more subtlety and finesse, to holding his wand to their throats. 

Which they’d had discussions about, which, in turn, usually became a lecture that involved Harry listing the things he wouldn’t let Tom do.

“Ethically speaking,” Mulciber continued, repeating himself already, “umm – I’m not sure that it’s – really – appropriate to… you know…?” As Mulciber got quieter and quieter, Tom audibly sighed before taking a long sip of his water and putting the glass down with a clunk. He stood there for a minute, saying nothing with his mouth, but judging everyone with his eyes.

Harry avoided his direct gaze; there was no point in provoking him any further, not when he just needed to get whatever grievance it was out of his system.

_Then_ , they could continue.

Really, it was rude of Mulciber’s incompetence to get in the way in the first place.

With the same smoothness of motion, Tom moved forward to stand behind Mulciber’s chosen seat, his hands heavy on the back of the sofa, though the very tips of his fingers were low enough down that they were lightly touching at Mulciber’s shoulders. In itself, the gesture was not an inappropriate one, merely fraternal, if Harry was going to interpret it kindly; and it appeared, if anything, to make Mulciber _less_ rather than more comfortable. For, even from across the room, Harry could see Mulciber’s nervousness in the way that he swallowed so tightly, and glanced quickly between the rest of them like a rabbit. 

Nevertheless, Harry still found himself glaring and clenching his hands as Tom touched other people in the same way he touched him, and so incredibly brazenly, especially after insisting that Harry stayed here to watch the proceedings in full. Not to mention, that, judging by the slightest of smiles that glinted over Tom’s mouth, as shimmering and subtle as a momentary reflection across the surface of the sea, Tom knew exactly how it was making Harry feel. 

“Fortunately,” Tom said, still looking over at Harry, as though he was only the one that Tom was addressing, “I was talking about the potential _legal_ corollaries, _not_ the ethical ones, which you should’ve known, given I said it _quite_ clearly.”

Mulciber looked at the floor. 

“So, I’ll ask you again: is that something we can pursue?” Tom said, the bite between the words painfully obvious, and the tips of his fingers pressing harder down into the bones of Mulciber’s shoulder.

“Well, I’d have to check the – ”

Tom pressed harder, pushing his fingers into the natural hollows and digging down to see the reaction he could get. It was forceful enough for Mulciber to grimace and Harry became a little grateful that he was not on the receiving end. “Prima facie,” Tom said.

“Well – umm – Yes.” 

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he said, loosening his grip and patting Mulciber’s shoulder lightly as he stepped away from him. The others found excuses to look elsewhere, and the moment of silence stretched on for longer than it should have done. 

So, Harry took advantage. 

With none of them looking, Harry licked his lips and let his hand fall ever so casually against his leg. The tips of his fingers running along the full length of his thigh, before splaying out obscenely wide when they reached the crease beside his hipbone. It wasn’t hard to get Tom’s full attention after that. Just an idle smile in his direction, and the tipping back of his neck in a lazy sort of fashion that would undoubtedly remind Tom of numerous moments where he was down on his knees, and Harry’s hands were in his hair, and he was putting that provocative tongue to _very_ good use.

Tom swallowed.

He picked up his glass again, holding it a little tight and gulping down half its contents; he put it down and walked quickly around the back of the chairs. Like that, his footsteps were loud, and they made Harry’s skin prickle.   
“You know,” Tom said, interrupting Mulciber, who had still been making small, pathetic, noises, and addressing them all, though he only looked at Harry. “I think we need to have a brief conversation about…” he paused behind Harry’s seat and he could feel Tom’s hands resting on the back of the chair, “…manners, respect and, most importantly, _distractions_.”

Tom leaned down, not inappropriately, but close enough for Harry to feel the warmth of his mouth and imagine it pressed against his skin. He didn’t react. He wouldn’t give Tom the satisfaction.   
Not that Tom was deterred, he just leaned closer, pressing right into Harry’s personal space. “You, for instance, Harry,” he said, slowly, “are being _awfully_ distracting.” That last bit was spoken softly, almost intimately, as Tom’s fingers brushed over his shoulders in the guise of casualness. 

It was Harry’s turn to swallow and lick his lips before turning his head up to meet Tom’s eyes. “And you, Tom,” he said, “are being very easily _distracted_ ,” he finished, barely moving his lips as he spoke because surrounded by this lot, speaking at the wrong decibel would set them all off like air-raid sirens whining loud accusations of impropriety. 

Tom glared at him, the slight pull at the corner of his mouth enough to suggest he didn’t like that conclusion. 

But then he smiled weakly and pulled himself away, though he dragged his fingers over the back of Harry’s neck as he did so, using enough pressure to lightly scratch the skin until Harry shuddered.   
“To continue then,” Tom said, now walking towards Lestrange and no longer looking in Harry’s direction, “I was thinking of an amendment to article four, section six, subsection two, clause c…” 

Harry sighed, his teeth coming together hard enough to make his jaw ache. What did he have to do to get noticed? Take his shirt off?

It took Harry all of ten seconds to reject that idea; Tom didn’t deserve that until he gave in at least a little. 

So he contented himself with fiddling with the denim of his jeans and feeling Tom’s eyes every so often come to rest on him. 

It wasn’t long before all Tom’s words started to blur together into professional jargon that Harry couldn’t be bothered to decipher, so he just turned the page of the magazine loudly and zoned it out; these days he’d gotten rather good at zoning out most of Tom’s more political musings; the ones where he was fishing around for an opinion, or preferably a debate that was, in fact, an argument in a cheap disguise. 

When Harry next looked up, Malfoy was saying something, probably questioning something he didn’t understand because Malfoy didn’t understand much of the legislative side of things. In fact, the only reason that he was even here was that he had money, rather a lot of it, and he was willing to let Tom have quite a bit. Clearly though, whatever he was saying right now wasn’t interesting, for Tom was rolling his eyes, and picking a large booklet of stapled papers off the desk before throwing them over at Malfoy. 

If he was asked, Harry was sure Tom would have said that he hadn’t aimed at Malfoy’s face, but Tom had also been listening to Harry talk quidditch techniques for long enough to know exactly how to aim. 

After glaring for a few seconds, Malfoy turned to examining the paper, reading it slowly and meticulously; an eyebrow raised, and his mouth curled in that usual way before he was convinced by something, and if Harry had learnt anything from hanging listening to Tom talk politics, it was that Malfoy _needed_ to be convinced. After all, given it was Malfoy who tended to finance Tom’s exploits, he had conditions such as maintaining the bear minimum of verbal transparency, and at least the illusion of legality. If they had that, Malfoy was more than willing to throw his money their way. 

“Notes in the margin?” he asked.

“Obviously,” said Tom, settling himself on the arm of the sofa, just beside Rosier, though he wasn’t looking at either of them. He was looking at Harry. Watching him as he settled both feet, flat, on the floor, grounding him, though his thighs were spread wide enough to give Harry ideas he would not be sharing with the group. He swallowed, and watched Tom’s hand, it was resting surreptitiously on the top of his thigh, the fingers spread, and his thumb rubbing along the inner seam in a mimicry of Harry’s earlier actions. Tom must have known what that looked like; how close to the line of propriety it treaded, and how much it made Harry want to march right over there and replace Tom’s hand with his own. 

Tom continued to watch him, the slightest of smiles playing at the corner of his mouth. 

Oh, he definitely knew what he was doing. 

This was Tom’s move, and the audacity of it was shocking; he’d had the nerve to call Harry a distraction when he was sitting there practically _touching_ himself, whilst all his friends were listening to Lestrange and Malfoy bicker about some clause or other. Tom exhaled slowly, his hand edging higher and teasing Harry with the fact he couldn’t actually touch. 

Without even meaning to Harry squeezed his hands, cracking his knuckles, but keeping his eyes fixed on Tom’s; they were glazed over and there was the slightest flush blooming up from beneath his collar. All sure signs that Tom was turning himself on. Harry shifted, squeezing his legs together because whatever reaction Tom was hoping for was certainly working and this room was starting to feel far too hot. 

“What about the Minister?” Avery asked, snapping them out of their little bubble. Harry exhaled and looked around quickly, none of the others looked like they realised something was amiss. Even Tom looked irritatingly unaffected as he shared a look with Lestrange, though however much he tried, he couldn’t hide the reddened colour of his skin and the slight notches in his breathing. 

“He’ll be _persuaded_ ,” said Lestrange, “and if not, well…” They both made a vague gesture that could have meant anything from disobedience to outright assassination, though Harry hoped it wasn’t the latter; he was already pretty sure that if Tom ever fucked up then he would have a hard time trying to persuade the Aurors and the Ministry and anyone else involved, that he wasn’t actually an accessory to it all.

Which was exactly why he didn’t like being in these meetings because, quite frankly, he’d rather _not_ know at all. But he didn’t have to be the voice of protest today because someone else did it for him. 

“ _That_ is an unspeakable insinuation, and you know it,” said Rosier, piping up for what must have been the first time that evening. She had been uncharacteristically quiet, but Tom had indulged her silence, so there was either good justification for it, or he had been waiting for an objection like this one.

“In that, it’s disgusting, or merely unutterable?” said Tom, sliding himself off the arm of the chair and pacing slowly and with a distinct purpose around the back of Malfoy’s chair, before stopping behind Harry’s section of the sofa again. He stood there for a moment, waiting. Eventually, his hands came to rest on the back of the sofa itself, close enough to Harry’s neck that he could feel how the fingers hooked themselves over the contours of the material, and how they moved to get more comfortable.

“Unutterable,” Rosier said carefully, her head tilted back as though she was ready to challenge any disagreement he might present. But Tom just hummed a light approval, his fingers more forward to brush along Harry’s shoulder and onto the base of his neck; just a smooth, slow caress that made Harry shiver.

Tom was still pushing too hard when he leaned down to speak in the guise of intimacy. Harry swallowed at the gesture, beside him, he could feel the warmth from Tom’s mouth, it licked over his ear and made all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He swallowed again.

“And what exactly are you – ?”

Tom raised his hand before she could finish, and Rosier cut herself off but didn’t make her expression any more palatable. In his brief experiences with her, Harry had always taken her role to be that of guarding the moral parameters; if it was a distasteful suggestion to Rosier, then it would be distasteful to the wider political field, at least, that was what he’d gathered from catching the tail-end of an innumerable number of Tom’s conversations with her. 

But apparently, he now didn’t care for her input. 

Instead, Tom was still close to him, his fingers resting on his shoulders. Still waiting. “Do you want to know what else is unspeakable, Harry?” Tom said, his voice hot and sticky in his ear, and loud enough that it appeared he was still addressing the entire room. Although most of them kept their eyes elsewhere; Harry watched how Avery had found a sudden interest in the floor, and Mulciber was glancing hopefully at the door. Harry found himself watching the coffee table, watching the light shine off the empty glasses.

He nodded. 

Though the movement was so minute, it barely counted as nodding at all, and he couldn’t help but wonder whether Tom could feel the tight lines of anticipation running through his shoulders like rivulets of gold through rock. If he did, Tom made no indication, he just leant even closer until his lips skimmed over Harry’s cheek, or rather, the bone that lay beneath his skin. It was the same place that Tom was always drawn to; more accessible than his throat, but no less intimate. 

Harry tilted his head to the side, his hands hot and pressed into his jeans. He loved and loathed it when Tom got like this. Loved it because being teased was so dizzying, loathed it because Tom wouldn’t stop at his own accord, yet, it wasn’t going to go any further until the rest of them had left and that could be hours.

Unless, of course, Tom had a good reason to ask them to leave early. 

“So,” Tom murmured against his ear, “do you want to know?” His tone dipping low and thick and just hypnotically seductive; the same way it always was when he wanted something, or, knew he had what someone else wanted. 

Harry couldn’t help himself. 

“Course, I do,” he murmured back, light as always, almost goading in the quality. Tom just leaned further forward, draping himself over the back of the sofa, so that the heat of his body was the only thing Harry could feel against his skin. He was submerged in whatever, sticky, pervasive sensation hung around Tom like a cloud, or a particularly intoxicating aura, sharp enough that Harry could taste it in the back of his throat. 

Without any apparent care for what the others saw, Tom let his lips brush over the shell of his ear, “the things you’re making me think of doing to you, Harry, are absolutely _unspeakable_ ,” he murmured, just loud enough that Harry couldn’t be sure that _everyone_ hadn’t heard. 

That was what he’d been waiting for. 

An assertion that was as good as a confession. Tom was headed towards hot and bothered if he hadn’t arrived at that destination already and he wanted to play it all _his_ way, with subtly and flirtations disguised as reprimands. It was sweet to see him think that he was going to get what he wanted; to think that he had somehow highjacked this game and could now do as he pleased. 

Harry swallowed and raised his chin up a little higher, exposing his throat, and letting Tom have his moment for a while longer. Then he turned his head a little to the left and gazed up at Tom’s eyes, “what’s stopping you then?” he said. 

Honestly, Harry expected Tom to back down then and there, after all, he wasn’t exactly one for public displays of affection at the best of times, and right now he was sitting in a room filled with five platonic friends he’d known since school, and who probably didn’t want to watch their friend getting up close and personal with his boyfriend. Though Tom stopping now was the worst-case scenario, the best-case involved everyone else being asked to leave, with immediate effect.

But the barb didn’t hit how it was supposed to. In fact, Tom just laughed low, and rhythmic, and somehow curling himself closer so that he could press his mouth against Harry’s jawline. “Oh, nothing’s _stopping_ me,” he murmured, using his tongue in ways that should definitely be outright unlawful.

“Why?” he continued, “do you want me to show them what a distraction you are to me, Harry?” The hand that wasn’t steadying him sliding ever so gently over Harry’s neck and down onto his chest, pressing into his skin until he was hot all over and his hands were trembling at his sides. He felt Tom smile against his throat, the edges of his teeth catching on the skin.

“Do you want me to show them _everything_ that I do to you?”

Harry swallowed again and shifted once more. However good it felt, Tom had absolutely no right to dictate how this was going to go. After all, Harry didn’t want to give the impression to all Tom’s friends that he was some sort of push-over that let Tom do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it, especially not when that was such a blatant falsehood. Sure, he let Tom indulge himself, _sometimes_ without any pushback at all, but it was rare, and usually only happened when he was dead on his feet from training.

“No, Tom,” Harry said softly, “I want them to see how _weak_ you are for me.” 

The reaction was immediate as Tom flinched, but not in a bad way, rather as though someone had just knocked all the air out of his lungs, and he was left with stuttering breaths and fingers that physically hesitated for a second. “I want,” Harry continued, “to show them how _desperate_ for my attention you are, that you’ll touch yourself when you’re less than a foot away from your friend.” That knocked Tom down again and the trace of a groan caught on the tip of his tongue, barely contained within his mouth at all. 

“You liked it – ” Tom began before Harry cut him off with his mouth. He would never get used to kissing Tom, there was just something so foreign and so fucking fantastic in how he sucked on Harry’s tongue, and bit into his lip, and left him feeling bruised.

Kissing Tom just made him feel filthy

He reached up and guiding Tom by his collar pulled him around to the front of the sofa; Tom letting himself be led despite the presence of the others. It made Harry shiver to know that they were all watching despite themselves; their eyes prickling on his neck and only adding to the heat under his collar and the slithering weight that was collecting in the base of his stomach. 

“Do you want me, Tom?” he breathed, looking up as Tom looked down.

They needed to be closer, really, that was the only way to ensure Tom wasn’t about to back out. Unfortunately, though, Tom had had the audacity to _not_ wear a tie today and that slim-fitting shirt that left so little to the imagination was hardly the most practical thing to grab a hold of, which left him with only one option really. Harry reached out and pulled Tom towards him by his belt buckle. “You look _so_ good,” he murmured, pulling harder until Tom half-stepped half-fell forward. 

Though he managed to brace himself with a knee between Harry’s legs and against the soft cushion of the sofa. His hands rested either side of Harry’s shoulders, warm and heavy. Harry’s own hands were still on Tom’s belt, well, _actually_ they were a bit lower than that now, palming him in just the right way to make Tom suck on his lip and momentarily close his eyes. 

Like that, Tom was easy enough to get into the seat beside him and easy for Tom to pretend he’d had no part in it. Or in the way that Harry, ignoring Lestrange’s judgemental stare, slid himself into his lap, grinding slowly until Tom dragged oxygen through his teeth and bit back another groan.   
“Harry,” Tom hissed, though it was frayed at the edges and rough around the middle, and he so obviously wanted it. 

“You can have me if you want, but not with them here,” Harry murmured, hoping, praying even, that Tom was about to accept that very generous offer. Otherwise, Harry would be excusing himself for the rest of the evening, and Tom would have to sit there, _aching_ for it; and he certainly wouldn’t be getting any attention tonight to make up for it. 

“So, Tom, what will it be?”

Tom barely took a moment to consider the options before he was mumbling, “everybody, get out.” For a moment there was no movement, only confused glance between the group as they tried to work out whether Tom was being serious or not. 

“I said, get out,” he repeated, even as he was dragging Harry closer to him and working his hands under his t-shirt, and Harry continued to kiss him, his own hands pressing into the leather of Tom’s belt and pulling it off before he could protest. Oh, this definitely made quidditch practice worth being cancelled.


End file.
